In the studio this week… three delicious logo design concepts for embroidery designer Katie Pirson

Katie Pirson is an utterly lovely embroidery designer based in London. Despite being just in her twenties Katie has a wealth of experience, training and expertise in needlework and costume design and approached us to help her create a brand identity for her business. Katie has just taken on a studio and was ready to up her game. She’s a renowned embroidery teacher, takes on commissions and is looking to expand her business into the younger market.

Whilst the crafts are enjoying a resurgence at the moment, needlework still has a bit of an image to shake off – old ladies cross-stitching samplers aren’t the only thing that embroidery has to offer you know! And so very conscious of Katie’s age and ambition we were keen to create an identity that was fresh, funky, fun and distinctive.

Here are some of our initial sketches from the brainstorming and our colour palette.

Katie’s brand was always going to be Autumnal – the handicrafts, the importance of quality and the substance of Katie’s training are all core to her values. The warmth of Katie and her passion for her craft also shone through and made Autumn the logical choice. We’ve taken the brighter colours of the Autumn palette (the Spring side of Autumn) to give Katie’s brand extra sparkle.

The fonts and illustration styles that we’ve chosen reflect inspiration, friendliness and a feeling of uplifting handmade quality that we know are all traits that Katie was keen to communicate.

Concept One

The font choice is deliberately curvy and elegant. There’s a beautifully inspiring quality about it which speaks volumes when just sitting alone. These colour choices reflect quality, passion, excitement and vision. The pattern style is directly relevant to the craft of embroidery, highlighting the intricacy of the craft.

Personally I love this font, I think it’s just beautiful! Here’s the logo in context.

Concept Two

Again, we’ve chosen font that really takes ownership of the page and creates a recognisable stamp for the Katie Pirson brand. The zesty green creates a feeling of optimism, inspiration and friendliness whilst the rich purple brings home the quality, vision and purpose in your work.

Concept Three

Probably the ‘safest’ logo style of the bunch, this option is a stunningly simple font that’s brought even more alive with a bespoke, simple border.

We’ve introduced some mushroom illustrations that tap into the fun, kooky and creative side of Katie Pirson. We all fell in love with the idea of a mushroom following Katie’s work that she showed Fiona and the idea to use this within one our concepts popped up in the brainstorming quite lot. So we had to honour it!

So what do you think? This is currently in development after lots of very positive feedback from Katie. Of course we’ll update you with progress as we go, but this was just so delicious I couldn’t help sharing it with you!

I love the colours of No. 1. Plus the embroidery-like pattern in orange looks fabulous on the rich pink – in fact I think the mock-ups you have for No. 1 really give a great visual for “imaginative embroidery.”

I do also think the mushrooms are fun, but perhaps they could be rendered in a more “stitched” way? I can’t decide whether I like the font of No. 2 more or not. What a fun brief to work with!

Hi Fiona!
This one was a toughie! However after due consideration (as an ex-embroideress/cross-stitcher/tapestry girl)…. I think I would plump with the font of design 1 combined with the beautiful mushrooms graphic. Each pulls at my heartstrings in its own right and has the “want” appeal…. together I reckon they’d be a wicked combination! I was thinking back to what I used to buy when I was stitching, and I was always drawn to Kelly Fletcher’s Jolly Red designs… very primary colours, young, fun and funky and somehow “of our time” and I think I’d feel the same about Katie’s brand too if I saw this branding/packaging.
Hope that helps
Dx

Hi there you lovely people in blogging world… Considering the the logo design I do feel that the mushrooms should be in it, a big must. But I know of another piece that Katie has done that is her (for me this is) signature piece, the white lady. Now Fiona I don’t know if you have seen it but I feel a combination of the white lady and the mushrooms in more of a stitch-sketch would will look great.

Just something I thought I would put in the mix of all this disscussion.

Aren’t the mushrooms gorgeous Pieter? I haven’t seen the white lady – will have to take a look at that! It’s worth bearing in mind that for the actual logo we should keep things quite simple, but we can certainly widen out the concepts when it comes to creating other collateral like the stationery or website for example. Thank you so much for the comment.
Liz I’m with you! Love the shrooms
Thanks for the comment Lucinda – I think that’s close to the final one…

Personally I’d go for concept one. I really like the font and your designs for the business cards, front and back are really beautiful. The card conveys something that is polished yet hand crafted, perfect!